hundred years ago the tastes of our people were simple. Now it takes so much simplicity to keep Congress going that the people don't get a chance at it. A century ago common, home-made rum was the only relaxation known to a plain but abstemious people. Now it takes a man with a mighty good memory to recall the names of some of the things he has drunk when his wife asks him about it on the following morning. I claim to have a good memory of names and things generally, but if you want to get me mixed up and have fun with me, you can do it that way.
"But, fellow-citizens, how can we best preserve the blessing of freedom and fork it over unimpaired to our children? How can we enchance the blood-bought right, which is inherent in every human being, of the people, for the people and by the people, where tyrant foot hath never trod nor bigot forged a chain, for to look back from our country's glorious natal day or forward to a glorious, a happy and a prosperous future with regard to purity of the ballot and free speech. I say for one we cannot do otherwise. (Prolonged applause.)
"I would rather have my right hand cleave to the roof of my mouth than to utter a sentiment that I would regret; but I say that as a people, as a nation or as an inalienable right which no man can gainsay or successfully controvert, not for political purposes, and yet I am often led to inquire whither are we drifting, not only as a people and as a nation, but as a country and as a joint school district, No. 6, where we now stand, and when we are paying a school teacher this summer twenty-two dollars a month to teach the children, little prattling children, during the hot summer weather, how many feet of intestines there are in the human body and what is best to do for it? Last winter we paid thirty-four dollars per month to a man who opened the school with prayer and then made a picture of the digestive organs on the blackboard. And still we wonder that politics is corrupt.
"I tell you that the seeds of vice and wickedness is often sowed at school in the minds of the young by teachers who are paid a large salary to do far different. What do you think of a man who would open a school with prayer and then converse freely about the alimentary canal? Such a man would lead a life of the deepest infamy if he had the least encouragement.
"So I say, fellow-citizens, that we must guard against the influences of the public schools as a nation, for the people, of the people, and by the people. Education is often a blessing in disguise, but we should not pry into things that the finite mind has no business with. How much was Galileo ahead in the long run for going out of his sphere? He was boycotted from morning till night and died poor. Look at Demosthenes. Look at Diogenes. They pried into science, and both of them was poor providers and have since died. Of course their names are frequently used in debating schools, and some claim that this is big pay for what they went through; but I say give me a high-stepping horse, the bright smile of dear ones who are not related to me in any way, the approval of the admiring throng, a large woolly dog that will do as I tell him, a modest little home and unlimited credit at the store, and I do not care how much B. will have to use off from the diameter of a given grindstone, for which he paid an undivided one-fifteenth.
"I know that this is regarded as a queer doctrine by what is called our more Advanced Thinkers but I say let every man who pants for fame select his own style of pant and go ahead. I bid him a most hearty godspeed and hope he will do well.
"But what makes me mad is for a man to come to me and dictate what I shall pant for. This is called intolerance by people who can afford to use words of that size. Intolerance is a thing that makes me tired. Whether it's religious, political or social intolerance, I dislike it very much. People that think I will enjoy voting for a yaller dog that had been picked out for me, or that I will be tickled to death to indorse the religious dogmas of an effete monicky with my eyes shot, don't know me. I say, let every man rely solely on his own thinker, and damned be he who first cries hold, enough! I am not a profane man, but I quote from a poem in using the above quotation.
"But again. In closing, let me say that we owe it to our common country to be peaceable citizens and pay our taxes without murmuring. The time to get in our fine work is on the valuation, and it is too late to kick after that. Let us cultivate a spirit of lofty patriotism, but believe nothing just to oblige others. I used to be a great believer in anything that was submitted for my approval. That was what kept me back. Now, if a man like Jay Gould says he is not feeling so well as he did, I make him show me his tongue.
"We are here to-day to celebrate the birthday of American freedom, as I understand it, and I am here to say that whatever may be said against our refinement and our pork, our style of freedom is sought for everywhere. It is a freedom that will stand any climate and I hear it very highly spoken of wherever I go.
"I am here to state that, as boy and man, I have been a constant user of American freedom for over fifty years, and I can truly say that I feel no desire to turn back; also that there will be a grand, free-for-all scuffle for a greased pig on the vacant lot south of the church at seven o'clock, after which fireworks will be served to those who desire to remain."
And thus did the Fourth of July pass with all its glories in Whalen's Grove in the year of our independence the 110th.
ENCOURAGING GREEN JOKES
I want to encourage green jokes, that have never trotted in harness before, and, besides, I must insist on using my scanty fund of laugh on jokes of the nineteenth century. I have got to draw the line somewhere.
CHESTNUT-BURR III – BILL NYE FINDS COLOROW FULL OF ODD TRAITS
A Copper-complexioned Gentleman of Few Words – A Generous Offer of "Two Sleeps" that was Promptly Accepted – A Speech from Colorow that Proved Fatal to Ills Hapless Stenographer.
The recent ruction on the part of William H. Colorow, Duke of Rawhide Buttes and heir presumptive to the throne of Yellow Jacket Park, brings the Indian once more to our notice and teaches us that eternal vigilance is the price of government land on the frontier.
Sig. Colorow is of Indian parentage and his lineage, such as it is, is very long. His ancestors run back as far as the earliest dawn of the Christian era. They claimed the land extending in a southerly direction from the North Pole, and seemed to ignore the fact that it had been sold for taxes. The Indian has always been in favor of representation without taxation, and Colorow has believed in a community of grub, allowing the white man to retain a controlling interest in common, wet-browed toil. He has always been willing to divide his bread with the pale face. He has offered, time and again, to give the white man the bread that was sweetened with honest sweat, while he took his plain. He says that to prefer bread that tastes of perspiration shows a depraved taste.
Colorow has for years been a terror to the people of northwestern Colorado, eastern Utah and southern Wyoming. Every spring it used to be his custom to stroll into North Park and prospect for prospectors. Once he came to call on me. He had been there longer than I had and so, of course, it was nothing more than etiquette that he should call on me.
He seemed to enjoy his call very much. I could not think of anything to say, though generally I am of a bright and happy disposition. After I had asked him how his mother was, I could not think of anything else to interest him. Finally I thought of Capt. John Smith and how he amused a hostile band by showing them his compass and new suspenders. I had no compass, but I had a new watch which I carried in a buckskin watch-pocket, and I thought I would show him the sweep-second and fly-back and let him see the wheels go round.
When Colorow is captured, if the United States of America has no use for that watch, I would be glad to have it returned to me at No. 32, Park Row, New York.
Colorow is a man of few words. I will never forget what he said to me when he went away. He held up two fingers and said in a voice that did not seem to waver:
"Meboe so, two sleeps more, you get out."
I sometimes think that when a man says very little we are more apt to take an interest in what he says. It was so in his case. I got to thinking over his remark after he had gone and I decided to accept of his generous offer.
He had given me two sleeps; but I do not require much sleep anyway, and when I got to thinking about Colorow and his restless manner while he was my ghost I could not sleep so well as I had formerly, and so I have been doing the most of my sleeping since that in a more thickly settled country.